


Inception

by RefugeeofTumblr



Series: flight was never so beautiful / and the sky was never so clear [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, No relationships yet, Shady Harrison Wells, discovering Barry's powers, maybe background Caitlin/Cisco
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-08-13 21:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7986847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RefugeeofTumblr/pseuds/RefugeeofTumblr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All things start somewhere, but Harrison never expected that the end of his dreams would be the beginning of a whole city's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lightning Gave Me Abs and Other Weird Moments

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you so, so much to the wonderful Elrhiarhodan! You give me the courage to put these works somewhere that isn't my own head. (Also, you're a great beta and I'm lucky to have your advice.)

Cameras flash. The eyes of Central City are turned to the monolith that is S.T.A.R Labs tonight, as Dr. Harrison Wells rolls onto the stage, smartly dressed in his signature black suit and clean white dress shirt.

Harrison _shines_ for these few, glorious moments. In the public’s eye, he is savior and mentor.

“Thank you.” He raises a hand, smiling, and the crowd’s applause fades. “My name is Harrison Wells. Tonight, the future begins. Our team here will, with the help of this new accelerator, change what we now understand as physics.”

The applause kicks back up. Nodding graciously, Harrison lets enthusiasm reign. People feel good right now, and why shouldn’t they? An incredible thing is happening for Central City.

After a moment, though, he regains control. “There will be advancements in power, advancements in medicine, and trust me, that future will be here far sooner than you think.”

Later, when Harrison watches the news coverage, he sees the look he’d had on his face and gags. The cameras record it all. Every flash of dazzling blue as his gaze roves over the assembly. The near manic gleam as he speaks of medicine, of power.

All told, the accelerator is active for 45 minutes. 17 people die.

~

**Barry Allen.** Harrison stares at the medical file that Caitlin has dumped into his lap, makes no move to open it. Another casualty?

“We can still save him.”

Furrowing his brow, Harrison meets her gaze at last. “What do you propose, Dr. Snow?”

~

The Cortex handles the transition from command center to long-term care unit gracefully. Barry’s bed dominates the floor, IV stand sleek and silver beside him. Desks are pushed back against the walls. Caitlin brings many of her medical supplies out into the open, the better to be within easy reach at short notice.

Harrison becomes used to this odd new addition to their solemn little crew. Barry doesn’t actually demand a great deal; Caitlin feeds, bathes, and monitors him. Cisco seizes the opportunity provided to set up a miniature sound station on one of the desks so that he can play music, claiming that comatose people still hear their surroundings, so it might help keep Barry’s brain active.

Well, even if that’s true, Harrison isn’t sure that Barry needs much help. The boy’s muscles don’t atrophy - far from it. Where Barry was lanky and relatively unimpressive muscle-wise before, he begins to bulk up. Not in the way a bear fattens up for winter, but in the way an athlete’s fat gives way to denser musculature with heavy training. The change is perhaps most strikingly seen when Caitlin rolls down the blankets one day to give Barry a sponge bath. Her startled gasp has both Cisco and Harrison looking up from their workstations, instantly alert.

“I’m sorry,” Caitlin glances at them sheepishly. “I just wasn’t expecting this. Most coma patients are lucky to avoid irreversible joint damage, but…”

She trails off and moves aside so that the others can see.

Cisco speaks first. “Holy shit. Lightning gave him abs?”

“Not just lightning, Cisco,” Harrison murmurs around the growing lump in his throat. “Lightning from a storm cloud seeded by the explosion.”

Looking down at his own figure, the young engineer frowns. “Why can’t I get some of that?”

Harrison and Caitlin respond immediately: “No, Cisco!”

“Aww…”

 _As clever as Cisco is,_ Harrison reflects later, _he has a tendency to follow whatever harebrained scheme pops into his head with no thought as to the consequences._

~

The lab is blessedly quiet for several months.

Really, Harrison should have expected that the quiet wasn’t going to last.

“Doctor Wells, you need to get down here right now!”

When Harrison rolls into the Cortex, he’s greeted by the sight of a very awake and very puzzled Barry Allen. He’s also greeted by a wave of unexpected heat that rolls through his body. _That’s new._

“How long was I out?”

Harrison seizes the chance. “Nine months. Welcome back, Mr. Allen.” Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco’s heads turn abruptly at the sound of his voice.

Barry’s eyes are a vibrant green. They widen, shock and then excitement flickering there as the man - boy, really, he looks so young and alive and bright like this - takes in who he’s looking at. Iris mentioned once, in a hushed whisper, that Barry had been so excited over the accelerator. Had even, if her stories were to be believed, viewed Harrison as a hero.

Some hero.

Barry seems to catch onto the fact that a solemn silence has fallen over the room. “Wait. Where is… everybody?”

“I’ll explain,” Harrison holds up a hand as Caitlin gestures toward the med bay. “Let’s catch you up on things, Mr. Allen. You should get your feet under you before Dr. Snow gets to do more tests.”

The boy follows eagerly, body practically vibrating as he trails Harrison out into the hall. Stories below them lie the shattered, twisted magnets that had been meant to focus and direct proton streams.

For a moment, Barry gazes down at the destruction, eyes wide. Harrison sits back, letting him take in the scene.

“What the hell?”

Harrison grimaces. “The night S.T.A.R Labs went active, my life’s dream was accomplished. For 45 minutes we had done it. Broken the record. Advanced science.” A brief, harsh laugh leaves his mouth at the thought. How naive we were... “Then something went wrong. The core destabilized, the ring underneath us popped, and all the energy of the blast went up.”

Barry is watching Harrison intently now. Their eyes meet, green and blue, and Harrison is silent for a moment.

“That energy, Mr. Allen,” he continues, voice dropping to a grave rumble, “seeded a storm cloud. And that storm cloud seeded a lightning bolt.”

Understanding comes immediately.

“That lightning bolt stuck me.”

“Just so.”

They sit - and stand - beside the railing for a brief, quiet moment. Expressions play across Barry’s face, uninhibited. For his part, Harrison is content to watch the expressiveness of the young man’s features, and does not press for a response.

Then, out of the blue:

“Okay.”

Harrison blinks. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Barry affirms, offering a gentle smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Weeks have passed since Barry woke up. During that time the life Harrison Wells has built in the aftermath of the particle accelerator explosion is systematically deconstructed.

Privately, Harrison likens the experience - somewhat fancifully - to a paradigm shift. Barry’s flashing presence lights up areas he had assumed dead and gone, revealing them to be opportunities to do better, instead of the black landscape he sees in his dreams, marred and choked by failure.

All of this goes through Harrison’s head once more as he watches Barry plug away on the newly built ‘cosmic’ treadmill. Though the mutant attempts to hide it, he can perceive the speedster’s motions at super speed better than a regular human being. Perhaps only another speedster could admire the leanness and graceful motion that is _the Flash_ better than Harrison; the knowledge is as electric as the lightning Barry trails when he runs.

_Beep, beep, beep_. A timer goes off, and Harrison reaches for his phone to turn it off.

“That’s enough, Mr. Allen. You seem to be improving at the rate Caitlin predicted.”

A bright grin is flashed Harrison’s way. “Really?”

“Really.”

“This is great! Now I can totally get through all my lab reports on time.”

Harrison pauses, raising an eyebrow. “You couldn’t before? If not, I question the CCPD’s standards.” The quip is perhaps not as obviously jovial as he hoped, but Barry seems to take it as such without clarification.

Too well, even, because he stalks forward, caging Harrison and leaning close until their faces are mere inches apart. The playful glimmer in the speedster’s eyes serves as the only hint that he’s not completely serious as he drops his voice to a rumble.

“We at the CCPD take complaints seriously. Would you like to lodge one?”

Harrison can think of several things he would like to lodge, but a complaint isn’t one of them. Despite the sudden dryness of his mouth, he keeps his cool and stares steadily back into Barry’s eyes.

“No, Mr. Allen. I don’t think I have any complaints.” A subtle twitch at the corners of Harrison’s mouth, easy enough for a speedster to perceive, is the final hint of his continued amusement. Barry huffs playfully, straightening up again. He seems a bit put out that he wasn’t able to ruffle Harrison’s impeccable calm.

Or perhaps it would be best described as ‘unflappable’.

Oh, stars. Harrison shakes his head, laughing beneath his breath. If Cisco were aware of Harrison’s mutant nature, the boy would have a field day with that joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh. Just felt I ought to upload a cute little thing at least. Consider it team building, except between Barry and Harrison. *wink wink* My writing blog is [dug-so-deep](dug-so-deep.tumblr.com), so feel free to come scream at me there.


	3. Sand in the Bottom Half of the Hourglass

Barry bursts into the Cortex, gasping and choking. Harrison grabs his arm and holds it as Caitlin races to get what they need to extract the sample of Nimbus’s gas.

_Stupid boy!_ Harrison wants to roar. _What are you doing, risking yourself like this?_

Despite the alarm and shock in Barry’s eyes, there is no regret: a defiant gleam flickers there. This, Harrison begins to realize, is why. This gleam, the sparks in this speedster’s eye, is the _Flash_.

Fear shudders down the mutant’s spine at the thought. The Flash is almost an independent force of his own, and something about that terrifies Harrison. What happens to Barry if that force doesn’t like what he’s doing? What happens if that force tries to push Barry into doing something too dangerous and gets him killed?

Then Caitlin is there with a gigantic needle hovering over Barry’s chest. No more time to dwell on thoughts of past and future.

~

That night the stars gleam brilliantly in the night sky, and for once in his life Harrison doesn’t want to fly. Instead, he sits parked in his wheelchair, gazing up through the glass roof at the constellations above his living room. A crystal glass half-filled with bourbon hangs limply in his hand.

Barry Allen took Harrison’s life by storm. Much, amusingly, like the lightning he was struck by. Caitlin and Cisco have been constants - warm, unwavering, loyal. As Barry is now, with this energy of the Flash within him, he’s bright and fast and loud as nothing else is. In a way, it’s also difficult for Harrison to describe.

Is it any wonder that Harrison cannot help loving him? Who couldn’t love such a bright, shining star of a person?

Shining star. Melancholy crashes over the mutant’s heart at the thought.

_I called Tess my shining star. Look what happened to her… and what might happen to Barry if this energy that I put inside him doesn’t look after him._

He remembers standing on a beach to watch Tess’s ashes washing away with the tides. He remembers swearing that he would never get involved this way again, that he would never expose anyone else he loves to so much pain.

This Flash business will get Barry killed. And Harrison is stuck here until it does; he’s the fly trapped in the amber, unable - unwilling, even - to leave.

So what happens when the amber breaks?


End file.
